Advisers despair over disastrous display although Biden gives vigorous showing at North Carolina rally on Friday

Panicking Democrats were speculating about whether Joe Biden should be replaced as their party’s nominee for US president following a disastrous debate performance that turned whispers about his age and fitness into a roar.

Biden’s shaky, raspy-voiced showing against Donald Trump at the first presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday was widely panned as a disaster that, instead of assuaging fears about his mental acuity, amplified them on the biggest political stage.

Exclusive: Former Labour leader calls on party to ratchet up scrutiny of Reform in final week of campaign

Neil Kinnock has warned his party not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Nigel Farage, as concern grows in Labour ranks that Reform UK could pose a long-term threat for them as well as for the Conservatives.

The former Labour leader told the Guardian he wanted Labour to turn its guns on Farage’s party in the final week of the election campaign, saying the populist right could gain a stronghold in the UK as it has across much of Europe.

Exclusive: Ofwat to investigate circumstances around payment of dividend to intermediate parent company

The board of Thames Water agreed to pay a £150m dividend hours before its shareholders U-turned on plans to pump emergency funding into the struggling water supplier, the Guardian can reveal.

The water industry regulator was examining the decision by the debt-laden company’s board to sign off the payout at a meeting on 27 March, sources said.

Britain to make legal arguments over jurisdiction in case of alleged war crimes by the Israeli PM

An intervention by the UK government at the international criminal court is expected to delay a decision over whether an arrest warrant can be issued against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday they would allow the UK to make legal arguments in the case as they consider whether to approve requests made by the ICC’s chief prosecutor for warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Bodies of Lauren Evans, 22, and Daniel Duffield, 24, were discovered at a house in Hednesford, Cannock, on Tuesday

Police say they are not looking for anyone else after a paramedic was found dead along with a woman at a house in Staffordshire.

A murder investigation was launched after the bodies of Lauren Evans, 22, from Bridgend, south Wales, and Daniel Duffield,24, from Cannock, were discovered at a property in Hednesford, Cannock, on Tuesday.

University sought order after students slept in building for more than a month in response to report about LSE’s Gaza-linked investments

The London School of Economics has been granted a court order indefinitely barring encampments in one of its buildings after students slept in its atrium for more than a month in support of Palestine.

Several students set up the camp in the atrium of the ground floor of the Marshall Building in central London on 14 May, vowing to remain there until LSE met its demands.

Infant among six injured, with at least one dead and more trapped in building in central Ukraine; 10 Ukrainian civilians freed from Russia and Belarus jails in Vatican-mediated deal. What we know on day 857

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A Russian missile strike hit a nine-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring six others, officials said. The death toll would likely rise as more people remained trapped in the building, where four upper storeys collapsed as a result of the attack, said the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. A photo posted on Telegram by the governor, Serhiy Lysak, and other images on social media showed a badly damaged building that had smoke rising from a gaping hole in its upper storeys. A seven-month-old infant was among the injured, Lysak said. Three people were in severe condition.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 10 civilians including a politician and two priests taken prisoner in Russia and Belarus had been freed in a deal mediated by the Vatican. Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners throughout their two-year conflict but the release of civilian prisoners is rarer. “We managed to return 10 more of our people from Russian captivity,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. It was not immediately clear if the release was part of an exchange deal involving Russian prisoners held in Ukraine. Some of those released had been in prison since 2017, he said, arrested in Russian-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine that at the time were run by Moscow-backed separatists.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of the settlement of Rozdolivka in eastern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian military said heavy fighting was raging in areas around the settlement. The Russian ministry said on Friday that Russia’s “southern” military grouping had taken up what it called more favourable positions after pushing Ukrainian forces out of the settlement. Rozdolivka is in the Donetsk region, the focal point of Russia’s slow advance across eastern Ukraine. It lies north of Bakhmut and Soledar, two localities brought under Russian control last year.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said Russian forces had launched 19 attacks in a broad sector that included Rozdolivka. “Our soldiers resolutely held their defences and repelled 15 of the assaults,” the evening report on Friday said. “Four armed confrontations are continuing.” The battlefield accounts from either side could not be verified.

The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with $150m worth of weapons and ammunition, including Hawk air defence interceptors and 155mm artillery munitions, two US officials said. The weapons aid package was expected be unveiled on Monday, they said on Friday, declining to be named. The administration is responding to Ukraine’s desperate requests for air defence support as Russia has pounded Ukrainian energy facilities in recent weeks via aerial attacks.

Vladimir Putin said Russia should start producing short- and intermediate-range missiles that were previously banned under a now-defunct arms treaty with the US. The Russian president was referring to missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (300-3,400 miles) that were banned under the cold war-era intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty. Washington withdrew from the deal in 2019, citing Russia’s failure to comply. The Kremlin said at the time that it would abide by a moratorium on production if the US did not deploy missiles within striking distance of Russia. In a televised address to his top security officials on Friday, Putin said the US had started using such missiles in training exercises in Denmark and “we need to react to this”.

Russia’s defence minister has ordered officials to prepare a “response” to US drone flights over the Black Sea, the ministry said, in an apparent warning that Moscow may take forceful action to ward off the American reconnaissance aircraft. The Russian defence ministry noted a recent “increased intensity” of US drones over the Black Sea, saying they “conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by western countries for strikes on Russian facilities”.

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board has voted to approve a $2.2bn payout for Ukraine under an existing loan programme, and lowered its growth outlook following “devastating” Russian attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure. The much-needed funds would be used for “budget support” and bring the total amount disbursed under the 48-month loan agreement to about $7.6b, the IMF said on Friday.

Marine Le Pen’s party has pledged to boost spending power, slash immigration and restore law and order

The far-right National Rally (RN) has strengthened in final polls, including one suggesting it could be on course for a historic parliamentary majority, as candidates fought for votes on the last day of campaigning before the first-round ballot in France’s most momentous election for decades.

Two days before Sunday’s ballot, two polls on Friday showed Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, France-first party pulling steadily further ahead in a race it has led since President Emmanuel Macron called the shock ballot almost three weeks ago after the defeat of his centrists in the European parliamentary election.

Claimants include family of 11-year-old girl who spent three weeks on dialysis after eating chicken salad sandwich

Tesco and Asda are being sued by customers, including the family of an 11-year-old girl, who were left seriously ill after eating own-brand sandwiches linked to an outbreak of E coli.

The supermarkets face legal action after a child and adult were left in hospital. One person has been confirmed to have died and more than 120 others including a six-year-old have been hospitalised in the UK due to the bacteria.

Climate groups and anti-war activists say bank using reported £20m deal to ‘hide its multitude of sins’

Wimbledon is facing calls to drop Barclays as a sponsor over the bank’s ties to fossil fuels and defence companies supplying Israel.

Ahead of the 2024 championships, which begin on Monday, climate groups and anti-war activists say the bank is using the event to “cover up its role” in funding the climate crisis and to “hide from accountability for its role in enabling Israel’s war crimes”.